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Mogadishu Somali government and allied peacekeeping forces on Wednesday recaptured a south-central town seized earlier by Al-Shabaab militants, a security official has said.

“Al-Shabaab militants were forced out of the town of Ayn in the Hiran region after violent confrontations with allied forces,” the official, requesting anonymity, told Anadolu Agency.

He added that the hours-long fighting had left four Al-Shabaab militants dead and a number of others injured.

Al-Shabaab has used Ayn as a launch pad for attacks on allied forces in Baldwin, capital of the south-central Hiran region.

Government and peacekeeping forces from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) recently announced that they had made several advances against Al-Shabaab, which remains in control of large swathes of the country’s south.

Nairobi Kenyan officials say a bomb attack outside a police station in Nairobi late Wednesday killed four people, including two police officers. The incident came in the midst of a countrywide security crackdown against illegal immigrants and terror suspects.

Police investigators worked into the night Wednesday poring over the twisted and charred remains of the car destroyed in a powerful explosion outside the Pangani police station.

Shopkeeper Bosco Mugendi was serving a customer from his kiosk directly across the street at the time of the blast.

“It just went off. I heard a big sound like a thunderstorm, then I saw something like fire and smoke, which gave me a big blow and I just ran outside. I didn’t even remember to close my kiosk,” said Mugendi.

Two police officers were killed in the blast, along with the driver and another passenger.

Community police official Patrick Lumumba said the police officers were inside the car that was carrying the explosives, having pulled it over earlier for driving on the wrong side of the road.

“The two police officers entered in their vehicle followed by a patrol car and as they were coming to the police station it seems as if they had already put on everything ready, and at this place is when they detonated,” said Lumumba.

Lumumba suspects the bombers may have been planning to attack a live television event taking place nearby, but were diverted by the two officers.

“The police are doing a good job and we still cannot relent. We want the police to continue, the only thing we will advise the police is when they suspect any vehicle, we need a thorough check even before the vehicle is taken to the police station,” he said.

Kenyan police have been conducting a major security sweep targeting illegal immigrants across the country, following recent attacks blamed on Somali militants.

Pangani police station has served as a detention center for suspects caught in the dragnet, many of them from the predominantly Somali Eastleigh neighborhood. Detainees have complained of poor conditions and police abuse taking place inside.

On Twitter, Inspector General David Kimaiyo mourned the loss of the two officers and said the police will not relent in their fight against terrorism, writing “I fully declare war.”

Mogadishu The top United Nations envoy to Somalia warned Tuesday that the U.N. and other foreign diplomats may have to withdraw from the war-ravaged nation if they continue to be attacked.

He spoke the same day that two Al-Shabab gunmen killed a Somali legislator as he left his home in Mogadishu, marking the second fatal attack on a member of parliament in as many days.

U.N. Special Representative Nicholas Kay said attacks that cause “significant losses” would likely force international officials to leave or, at least, pare down their missions in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

“I am deeply conscious that if we make a mistake in our security presence and posture, and suffer a significant attack, particularly on the U.N., this is likely to mean to us withdrawing from Somalia,” Kay said at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington.

“There are scenarios in which if we take further significant losses, then that would have a strategic effect on our mission,” Kay said.

Western diplomats began increasing ties with Mogadishu after Somali civil activist Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected president in September 2012. At the time, the West cautiously predicted improvements in Somalia’s security, given the expected stability Mohamud’s government would bring to the failed state and the ouster of rebel network Al-Shabab from Mogadishu the year earlier.

But Al-Shabab has continued its drumbeat of deadly attacks against diplomats, aid workers and the Somali government.

Earlier this month, a gunman at an airport in Somalia’s Puntland region shot and killed two consultants working for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

And in June 2013, the U.N. compound in Mogadishu was the scene of a deadly suicide attack staged by Al-Shabab, which has called the U.N. “a merchant of death” in Somalia.

The violence has slowed U.S. enthusiasm for stepping up its Somali mission, which is currently based in neighboring Kenya due to the security threats. It’s unlikely that the U.S. will establish an embassy in Mogadishu for at least another several years.

A handful of countries — including Great Britain, Turkey, Sudan, Libya and Yemen — have embassies in Mogadishu. The European Union also has an office there.

As recently as last week, officials announced the deployment of about 400 Ugandan troops to Somalia under a new United Nations guard unit charged with protecting U.N. staff and installations. It’s part of an effort that Kay described Tuesday as the U.N. re-bolstering its presence in Mogadishu after pulling back to Kenya following last June’s attack on its compound.

“We have to measure our presence,” Kay said, adding that he has encouraged more U.N. member states to open or expand programs in Somalia.

However, he described a perilous balance between “believing that it is right that we should be there” and facing the risk of doing so.

“I’m also deeply conscious there are risks,” Kay said. “And if we got hit very badly, it might have an impact.”

PM: The Use of Terror will not derail us from the progress made in securing Somalia

MOGADISHU Somalia’s prime minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed has strongly condemned the assassination of a member the country’s Federal parliament who was shot dead by Al shabab.

His Excellency Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed sends his deepest and most heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of Member of Parliament Abdiaziiz Isaak Mursal, Secretary of Parliament’s Natural Resources Committee. The horrific and deplorable killings of two members of parliament have shocked the nation.

Sending his condolences Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, said: “MP Abdiaziiz Isaak Mursal was a dedicated Committee Secretary honourably serving Parliament and the people of Somalia. I send my condolences to Abdiaziz Isaak Mursal’s family and friends and I pray they have the strength to move forward whilst we seek justice. The hunt for the perpetrators will continue until those responsible face justice.

“These acts of terror only serve to inflict indiscriminate violence, distress and grief on innocent people. Taking a human life is abhorrent and these terrorists have destroyed an innocent family and stricken them with grief.

“The use of terror will not derail us from the progress made in securing Somalia, it only serves to unite and strengthen our resolve to defeat all forms of terrorism and violence.”

MOGADISHU Islamist rebels shot dead a Somali lawmaker on Tuesday, a day after blowing up one of his colleagues, and vowed to keep killing politicians and wreck efforts to secure the country.

Al-Qaeda-linked group al Shabaab told Reuters they wanted to send a message to Western-backed President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who on Tuesday was due to wrap up a three-day conference on improving security in the capital.

“This proves that they cannot and will never do anything about security … More serious killings are on the way,” said al-Shabaab’s military spokesperson, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab.

Somalia’s two decades of civil war and lawlessness, triggered by the overthrow of President Siad Barre in 1991, has already spread to destablise the region.

Western nations fear Somalia could sink further into chaos and provide a major launchpad for Islamist militancy.

Dahir Amin Jesow said fellow member of parliament Abdiasis Mursal was killed outside his house in Mogadishu’s Madina district.

“Men with pistols hit him with several bullets in the chest and in the head. He died on the spot,” Jesow said.

Islamic law

Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed said the violence would not deter his government from securing peace.

“The use of terror … only serves to unite and strengthen our resolve,” he added.

Al-Shabaab had said Monday’s killing of a lawmaker with a car bomb was meant to punish politicians who backed the “invasion of the Christians into Somalia”, a reference to the support Mogadishu receives from Western governments and African Union members who have sent in troops to battle the rebels.

Al-Shabaab was pushed out of the capital in 2011 but has since waged a bombing campaign in a bid to overthrow the government and impose its strict version of Islamic law.

It claimed responsibility for last year’s attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya’s capital Nairobi in which at least 67 people died.

MOGADISHU A Somali lawmaker has been shot dead on Tuesday in Mogadishu by unidentified assailants, the second MP to be assassinated in the capital in the past 48 hours, KON reports.

Abdiaziz Isack Mursal, the MP was attacked near his house in Mogadishu’s Dharkenley district by the Gunmen armed with pistols and shot him in the head and chest in several times that led to his immediate death on the spot, Witnesses said.

He was killed on his way to a parliament session at the country’s national assembly in Somalia’s Mogadishu, where militants of Al shabaab brushed off from their strongholds in south have been pouring into over the last few weeks, security officials said.

Perpetrators have been reported to swiftly run away from the crime scene a few minutes before, police of Dharkenley administration has arrived in the crime scene where the legislator has been gunned down, as they have started investigation

No group has yet claimed the responsibility for murdering of elder and the police of Dharkenley administration didn’t succeed to arrest anyone for the killing of the parliamentarian.

KISMAYO – Unidentified assailants have shot and killed Monday a prominent Elder in Somalia’s southern port city of Kismayo, the latest in string of shootings targeting businessmen, elders and politicians there, reports.

Amir Abdirashid Abdi-Dhuh, the Sultan of Sheekhaal Clan inhabited largely in the southern Lower and Middle Jubba provinces, south Somalia was gunned down by two masked men armed with pistols, according to the witnesses who spoke to KON by phone.

“I saw a men dressed in Jubbaland militia uniform shooting the elder in the head and chest while sipping a tea at a tea-shop at Shaqalaha village around 12:15 P.M. in the heart of Kismayo city and the killers fled from the area shortly before the troops arrived,” said another witness.

Armed Ras Kamboni militiamen in fighting vehicles have reportedly arrived at the shooting scene and carried out an operation, but they didn’t achieve to arrest the perpetrators who killed the innocent elder.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the killing.

This assassination is the second in less two months in the port city of Kismayo, 500Km south of Mogadishu as the insecurity has been on the rise over the past 2 years and locals report that their lives at a risk to Ras Kamboni militia fighters loyal to Ahmed Madobe aided by Kenyan army.

H.E Prime Minister called on security agencies to bring the perpetrators to justice.

The Prime Minister, said: “My Cabinet and I send our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Isaak Mohamed Rino MP, killed today in a car explosion and wish Mohamed Ali a speedy recovery.

“Somalia has today lost a committed parliamentarian who worked tirelessly to serve the people of Somalia and help rebuild our country” he added.

“This cowardly attack will not derail the progress made in Mogadishu and across Somalia. The security agencies will investigate this cowardly killing and ensure that those who carried out this attack face justice.”